


Each to the Other

by miralyn



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-04
Updated: 2006-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-30 20:27:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miralyn/pseuds/miralyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has always been good at being who others need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Each to the Other

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from “Crystal Gazer” by Sylvia Plath.

_When she first slept with Daniel, it had been about grief._  
  
“Oh, God,” she had said, entering the tent, and now, in the infirmary, she can’t think of anything more comforting to say. She sits by his bed as Janet heals his burns, and tries to imagine how it felt, his wife’s body killing him as his wife’s mind communicated love and forgiveness. She sits by his bed and holds his hand, and from his desperate grip, she thinks that maybe he’s had enough of words for now.  
  
When he’s released, she shepherds him up to the surface and tucks him into her car. Sitting in her passenger seat with wide eyes and white knuckles, Daniel looks how she felt when her mother was killed. She doesn’t often think about that God-awful week between the crash and the funeral, but when she does, what she remembers most is the back of a white Chevy, the maroon upholstery scratching against her back and her ass, as she lost her virginity to a seventeen-year-old step-cousin she met at the wake. She remembers, clearly, the unmooring effect of grief. She knows it would be easy for Daniel to slide into himself, away from them all, and never return. So when Daniel cries out, “Oh, God, Sam,” and weeps, slumped against the window, she drives past his apartment and leads him to her bed instead. She has always been good at being who others need, and when he calls out Sha’re’s name as he comes, she almost doesn’t even mind.   
  
She’s gone for a run and made coffee and toast by the time Daniel awakes. He finds his way to the kitchen, blearily, and kisses her before taking the mug she offers. The kiss is gentle and slow and although there is tongue as well as lips, it is almost chaste. When he squeezes her hand across the breakfast table, gratitude in his eyes, she smiles back and hides her disappointment well. She’s always been good at that, too.   
  
~  
  
 _When she first slept with Teal’c, it had been about honor._  
  
They are off-world, doing a sweep of the forest as Jack keeps an eye on Daniel and his ruins. No Jaffa, no natives, friendly or otherwise. The trees are quiet, and yet somehow Teal’c – whose intuition has saved them a thousand times – doesn’t hear it, doesn’t see it. But she does, and two shots from her sidearm sever the snake’s gaping mouth from its body. Its fangs glisten near his boot, and Teal’c freezes. She’ll always remember that. He freezes, lips parted in shock, in surprise, and then he bows, solemnly. They need no words of gratitude.  
  
She explains the shots to Jack, who is asking rapid-fire questions over the radio, and they continue the sweep in silence until Teal’c stops abruptly, pivoting to face her. “Major Carter,” he intones, in that impossibly calm voice. “I have a confession.” She just watches him, head tilted and eyebrow raised, waiting. She thinks about how their personalities have bled into each other. “Although I had seen you perform well in battle many times, during the first months I knew you, I had difficulty accepting your status as a warrior. On Chulak, no woman would enter a battle as you do, and indeed few men fight as well as you.” She takes a step towards him, eyes questioning, and he holds up his hand, asking for her indulgence. “I wish to apologize for any insult I may have unknowingly given you, as it is clear you are a warrior equal in every way to the finest with whom I have served, as well as a woman of extraordinary grace and virtue.”  
  
“Teal’c,” she says, softly. “It’s fine, you don’t have to – ”  
  
“I confess that I do not know the ceremony to properly honor your place in my heart, Samantha.” He steps towards her, and seeing her acquiescence, takes her head in his hands and presses a kiss to her forehead. “On Chulak,” he whispers urgently, fingers tangled in her hair, “I would have died to protect you, if indeed I could.”   
  
She smiles and cups his face with her palm. “On Earth,” she replies, even though they are light years from it, “we live to protect each other.” She finds that Teal’c kisses the way he fights, with passion and with all his formidable concentration.   
  
She knows then, in her gut and in her bones, that she will be crying out beneath him tonight. He kisses her again, and they finish the perimeter check without conversation. She’s a little surprised that neither Daniel nor Jack notice her swollen lips, her hitching breath.  
  
Hours later, she is surrounded by candles and incense and sweat, and Teal’c’s fingers are coaxing a third orgasm from her exhausted body. She thinks, This could be happiness, and then his lips and his hands and his breath rob her of any thought at all.  
  
~  
  
 _When she first slept with Jack, it had been about betrayal._  
  
When Daniel calls, hurt and angry and more scared than he’ll admit, she listens, quietly. She says the right things, where there are right things to say, and then she hangs up the phone and drives over to Jack’s. She parks a block away, and steals quietly across his lawn, through his back door. Her fingers find his throat, just as he’s taught her. He is unimaginably still as she slowly circumnavigates the arm of the couch, her grip never wavering. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hisses when she is finally face to face.  
  
“I could ask you the same question, Carter.” He could overpower her, she knows, now that she has lost the advantage of surprise. She’s not sure why he hasn’t.  
  
Lightning quick, she releases his throat and pins his wrists behind his head. “Stealing from the Tollan, hurting Daniel, acting like a complete and utter asshole – all this is what I mean when I ask: What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She is so furious that bright spots waver in the space between her and Jack, a phenomenon she always assumed was metaphorical. “Do you think this is a game? Do you think we spent three months working ourselves into the ground, and then risked Teal’c’s extremely valuable life, just so that you could come home and blow it this spectacularly?” She’s almost shaking, now, and she thinks the only reason Jack hasn’t knocked her out cold is that he wants to see what she’ll do next. He looks up at her with that goddamn smirk on his face, and she has never in her life wanted to taste another person’s blood. The animal impulse shocks her. She leans in, but instead of sinking her teeth into his carotid, she slowly, delicately licks the outer edge of his ear. She has surprised herself and him, and his throaty “Jesus, Carter,” sounds exactly as she’d imagined it, in happier times. She kisses him savagely, bruising their mouths and feeling his teeth. He twists his mouth away, gasping, “Carter, I, you don’t, I can’t –”  
  
She removes his belt with one hand and binds his wrists together, behind his back. She thinks about how this job has turned her into a woman for whom anything can be a weapon. “Shut the fuck up,” she growls, and she is gratified to see that he is finally looking as scared as the rest of her team feels. “This isn’t about you. This is about what you stole from us.” The words and the actions are spilling out, nonsensical and tight with rage, until she realizes she’s talking about trust. She fucks him roughly on the couch, with all their clothes on. She’d feel worse about it if she didn’t know that he could have broken away at any time.  
  
In the gate room a week later, she smiles as she’s expected to, but she can’t quite meet his eyes. Somehow he forgives her anyway.  
  
~  
  
 _When they first slept together, it had been about commitment._  
  
It’s a surprise, then, months after she drove him home, that Daniel shows up on her doorstep with a bottle of wine and a nervous grin. “Hi,” she says, very carefully not making the greeting a question. She lets him in, and he pulls a wineglass out of its cabinet without searching for it, because of course he knows where everything is. Because Daniel is family, she doesn’t ask what he’s doing here, even when he pours the wine into the single glass and holds it to her lips. She takes a sip, because it seems that’s what is required, and he nods and swallows a mouthful as well. She has just parted her lips to ask what’s going on when his mouth is on hers, tongue insistent, cool and sharp with the wine. “Daniel, you should know, Teal’c and I – ” She tries to explain the last several months, but he just nods and smiles.  
  
“We haven’t been that good to you, Sam, have we?” he asks, and she doesn’t really understand the question. “Even Teal’c, and God knows he’s been better to you and for you than Jack and me, but even Teal’c can’t be all of us, and you need all of us, Sam, don’t you? Don’t we all need each other?” He asks this kindly and it can’t be the wine, because she only had a sip, but ten minutes ago English made sense and now she can’t wade her way through Daniel’s words to the truth he’s trying to share. He watches her, intensely, and she suddenly understands that she might have just married Daniel.   
  
Then something in the room shifts, and she feels Jack and Teal’c behind her, silent and waiting. Daniel kisses her again, and stretches out a hand to Teal’c, who pulls Jack along to form a strange and bewildered circle in her kitchen. Daniel offers the glass to Jack and to Teal’c, and after they drink, Daniel sets down the wine and kisses Teal’c.  _Oh_ , she thinks, and realizes that no one is bewildered after all. Jack turns and she feels his lips on hers, soft and hesitant. There are hands she is holding and hands that hold her, and there are whispered declarations – “I’m sorry” “I love you” “I thank you” “I honor you” – and she thinks there may not be time and space enough in this galaxy to fit all that she wants to do and to say.  
  
~  
  
She had thought love would be a choice, would be a decision she made. But here, now, with these three men she never chose, she knows that love is about finding a home outside yourself.

 


End file.
